Who Obama Picks To Keep Doing Bush's Work For Him

(Poster from Austin Cline.)

Who Obama Picks To Keep Doing Bush's Work For Him

W. Scott Simpson is the Bush-appointed senior trial counsel whose name appears as one of three Obama Justice Department lawyers who wrote and filed the vile DOMA brief this week. Renee S., a commenter at Dykes To Watch Out For, has done some research about his background, and turned up the following:

Simpson was quoted as a lawyer defending Bush's attempted ban on late-term abortions in San Francisco Faith News, June 2004. The relevant portion of the article reads

Federal justice department lawyer W. Scott Simpson said that there is no evidence that extraction abortions are safer than any others and that they cause great and unnecessary pain to infants. Further, he said, "the evidence supports Congress' finding that partial-birth abortion is never necessary to preserve the health of the woman." Finally, Simpson said, "there's no elephant in the room. There's a baby. Congress can prohibit partially delivering that baby only to kill it."

Simpson replaced an attorney during the proceeding regarding FOIA, The Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington v. National Archives and Records Administration, in which Simpson was protecting Bush's interests regarding missing governmental e-mails. Here's a timeline on this case up through March 2009.

Also, for further information about his Mormon background, check his biography at a genealogy-related home-page.

Clearly, when evisceration is on the agenda, Obama's DOJ is able to find the right hyena to do it.

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How Many Times?

From AmericaBlog:

How many times do we have to hear:
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to fix Social Security.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to fix Medicare.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to provide health care to ALL Americans.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to help out Americans losing their homes.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to help all our veterans returning from war.
We don't have ENOUGH MONEY to rescue "no child left behind".

BUT...

We DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
We DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to bail out Bears Stearns.
We DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to bail out AIG.
We DO HAVE ENOUGH MONEY to pay for an unnecessary TRILLION DOLLAR war.

How many times, indeed?

How many times will we allow Republicans to get away with ignoring the law? How many times will we allow them to govern in secrecy? How many times will we vote for Democrats who enable tyranny? How long will we tolerate encroachment upon our Constitutional rights? How much inequality will we tolerate?

It's time for us to rise up!

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Oil Production Cost

$2

Average cost to produce a barrel of oil from Saudi Arabia.

$127.15

Price as of 8/15/2008.

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Bush Administration Destroys $5.9 Quadrillion in Value of American Lives

Video: Zaproot 47, July 2008

EPA Devalues Average American Life
In May, the US EPA re-calculated the 'value of a statistical life' as $6.9 million (US). This is a $900,000 (US) change in value since the last EPA calculation ($7.8 million) done in 2003. This -11% change in the value of an average American life is calculated by seeing the differences companies pay workers for jobs which have varying degrees of danger. It is used to determine whether projects which mitigate danger are worthwhile -- if the cost per statistical life saved is more than the value of a statistical life, the project is not economically viable, and contrariwise.

-11% for 5 years of George W. Bush doesn't really seem too bad, I supposed. That's only about -2%/year. 2%/year growth requires 36 years to double, so I figured -2% will require 36 years to halve. That's not so bad, because surely in the next 28 years we'll get at least one progressive President to fix the problems.

Then I took another look at the numbers.

You're probably aware that the US dollar has lost some value in the last few years. As a resident of Canada, I assure you that I'm aware of it. How does that effect this -11% number?

Badly, very badly

Let's view this 'value of a statistical life' in terms that relate to real-world quantities. We'll calculate the value of all American lives and then see the differences between the 2003 value and the 2008 value.

Population
On July 1, 2003, there were 290,447,644 Americans. On July 1, 2007 (the latest date the US Census Bureau has easily available, so we'll use that and ignore any change in population since then), there were 301,621,157 Americans.

Ounces of Gold
In 2003, the price of gold peaked at about $425/oz. In 2008, the lower end of the range gold has traded at is about $900/oz.

Barrels of Oil
In 2003, a barrel of oil traded for an average of $28. In the first half of 2008, about $98.

The Differences
At $7.8 million per, the value of American lives in 2003 was $2,265,492 billion, or 5331 billion ounces of gold, or 81,816 billion barrels of oil.

At $6.9 million per, the value of American lives in 2008 is $2,081,186 billion, or 2312 billion ounces of gold, or 21,241 billion barrels of oil.

Those are changes of -$184,306 billion, -3018 billion ounces of gold, or -60,575 billion barrels of oil. Alternately, that's a change of -8%, -57%, or -74% in value of American lives in US dollars, ounces of gold, or barrels of oil.

Value Destroyed by the Bush Administration in 5 Years?
Not quite priceless, but close enough. The value of 60,575 billion barrels of oil at the average price of oil over the first half of 2008?

$5,935,168,991,100,000 or $5.9 quadrillion

That is 1900 times the 2009 US Federal Budget.

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Gonzales and Justice Dept. Guilty of Partisan Hiring

Photo: J. Scott Applewhite/Associated Press

shocked, shocked I say...

Is anyone surprised by this?

Former Justice Department officials broke the law by letting Bush administration politics dictate the hiring of prosecutors, immigration judges and other career government lawyers, according to an internal investigation released Monday.

For nearly two years, top advisers to then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales discriminated against applicants for career jobs who weren't Republican or conservative loyalists, the Justice report found.

At times, their search for GOP activists to fill judgeships threatened to clog courts and potentially delay deporting illegal immigrants, the report said.

The federal government makes a distinction between "career" and "political" appointees, and it's against civil service laws and Justice Department policy to hire career employees on the basis of political affiliation or allegiance.

Yet Monica Goodling, who served as Gonzales' counselor and White House liaison, routinely asked career job applicants about politics, the report concluded.

"What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?" Goodling asked at least some candidates, according to the joint investigation by Justice's Office of Inspector General and Office of Professional Responsibility. Others were asked about their views on abortion and gay marriage.-- By LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writer

It is going to take a lot of chemical cleansers and elbow grease to clean up this mess. Or maybe a good exterminator company... we are going to have to spend the first few years uncovering all these insects that have infested and burrowed into every department in our government.

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Schumer Not To Blame For IndyMac Failure

John Reich over at OTS (Office of Thrift Supervision) is trying to blame Senator Chuck Schumer for the failure of the large thrift IndyMac. His story is that when Chuck Schumer supposedly leaked documents to reporters that raised questions about the banks viability he triggered a run on the bank which eventually led to its failure late Friday evening.

Its fairly easy these days to google up all the news stories available about this sort of thing and google finance can put that information in context for you.

finance.google.com?q=NYSE:IMB
Clearly Schumer's statements had little or not effect. This bank was in freefall well before his statement on 6/26. There was a bit of a sell off, small compared to what had come before now, and nothing compared to when the bank itself announced it would issue no new loans, and fire half it's staff on 7/8. On the same day S&P changes their rating to complete JUNK.

This bank had so many bad loans they were going down, it was a question of when. No, they failed because the bank's management got involved in tons of crap loans, and then mishandled the internal management of the crisis. Their drastic actions in early July look like much too little to late, and that triggered the runs. But when you are a Republican hack, hired by George Bush to cover up the Fed's culpability in the mortgage crisis, it's much better to blame a Democrat from New York for the failure of a California Thrift that you yourself are responsible for. Heckuva Job Johnny...

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IndyMac Bank Fails, Fed Take Over

Friday night the feds stepped in and took over IndyMac, after they suffered run after run on the bank. Customers were withdrawing $100 million a day from IndyMac banks in order to save their cash. This is the first large bank to fail in the U.S. since the 80's.

In a side story one of Bush's little corporate cronies who works for the Office of Thrift Supervision is trying to blame this on Chuck Schumer...

The senator made comments in his letter questioning the viability of the institution,” John M. Reich, director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, said on a phone call with reporters. “When a member of the United States Senate makes such a statement, it frightens depositors. --NYTimes.com

What a load off crap, I will bet most of the customers of IndyMac would have no idea who Chuck Schumer is. The reality is that John Reich is actually one of the ones directly responsible for the current banking problems. Having a hand in helping to loosen lending requirements and encourage more and more predatory lending.

IndyMac was a major player in the subprime mortgage disaster. The bank had already announced layoffs from the 7,200 employees in a bid to stave off failing.

This is going to spook people. IndyMac is a HUGE bank.

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Torture

Listen up...

Minstrel Boy has something to say.

Read it.

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Convict "Jack" Abramoff

555

Number of known contacts between convicted criminal Jack Abramoff and George Bush (President)

Despite vociferous denials by White House officials of knowing Jack Abramoff... For the second time, an investigation by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, led by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), confirmed extensive communications between disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who is now serving a prison sentence, the White House and President George Bush. A September 2006 report by the same committee identified 485 contacts between Abramoff and the Bush Administration over the brief career of the scandal-tainted lobbyist; the new report identifies 70 additional contacts. Watchdog Blog

This is a criminal administration. They have committed numerous criminal acts. They have committed more crimes than Boss Tweed. It's really quite stunning.

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Alaska = Strategic Petroleum Reserves

The president believes Congress shouldn't waste any more time," White House press secretary Dana Perino told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

"He will explicitly call on Congress to ... pass legislation lifting the congressional ban on safe, environmentally friendly offshore oil drilling," Perino said. "He wants to work with states to determine where offshore drilling should occur."

Bush also will reiterate his call for development of oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska, Perino said. McCain has opposed drilling in the refuge, maintaining that the pristine areas in northeastern Alaska should be protected from energy development.

On Monday, McCain made lifting the federal ban on offshore oil and gas development a key part of his energy plan. The Arizona senator said states should be allowed to pursue energy exploration in waters near their coasts and receive some of the royalty revenue. -- AP

Drilling in Alaska, due to it's small size and the small volume of oil is equivalent to tapping into our Strategic Petroleum Reserves and is more plunder of America's treasure by this short-sighted Bush/Cheney administration and will leave America without a strategic reserve and less capable to respond in the future to any emergency situation that might arise.

Yet another thoughtless, and risky plan from the man with the reverse midas touch. Is there any doubt this will profit his oil buddies and not the American people, leaving America weaker and less secure.

We should be thinking of real solutions and not recycled political stunts from the 70's

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Bush's Europe Trip Sadly Coming to End

Bush arrives at Windsor Castle

36,000

Iowan's homeless after flooding...

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa — Marie Welton figures her daughter will have to bulldoze her flooded home here. She worries about the survival of her own business, a children's hair salon, as people recover from epic flooding that put 1,000 blocks underwater.
"They say we're going to be resilient. They say we'll overcome this," Welton, 52, said Sunday, but Iowans' can-do spirit "is going to keep going down before it comes up." --USAToday.com

This is the basic theme of the Bush presidency, only I don't know how many times America can have it played out on her stage.

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Losing Iowa

I realize that Tim Russert's death has hit the country like the sad senseless tragedy of Princess Diana's death or Clarabell. But maybe we can do something about the fact that we are losing more American cities to flooding.

Rain is expected through the weekend in Iowa, where floodwaters have deluged much of the state. The city of Cedar Rapids is hardest hit. More than 400 city blocks are under water and more than 3,000 homes have been evacuated.

One hundred miles to the southwest, officials have issued a voluntary evacuation order for much of downtown Des Moines. The mayor of the state's capital and largest city calls the evacuations an attempt "to err on the side of citizens and residents."

Iowa's governor has declared 83 of the state's 99 counties to be state disaster areas. Nine rivers are at or above historic flood levels. Relief may come next week, when the weather in Iowa is predicted to be sunny and dry.

Flooding is also widespread in parts of Michigan and Wisconsin. --AP

Maybe the National Guard and the Reserves can be called in... oh.. wait...

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Supreme Court Screws Bush Administration

the Supreme Court’s decision Thursday stripped away the legal premise for the remote prison camp that officials opened six years ago in the belief that American law would not reach across the Caribbean to a United States naval station in Cuba.

“To the extent that Guantánamo exists to hold detainees beyond the reach of U.S. courts, this blows a hole in its reason for being,” said Matthew Waxman, a former detainee affairs official at the Defense Department.

And without that, much will change. NYTimes.com

Man, that has to suck. You go to all the trouble of stacking the court and then they screw you with your pants on. Hahahahaha...

Cheney must be livid. Sorry Dick no gulags' for you. At least not ones you send people to. Damn those activist judges...

UPDATE

President Bush on Thursday strongly disagreed with a Supreme Court ruling that clears foreign terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay to challenge their detention in U.S. civilian courts. --a.p.

George, clearly nobody gives a shit what you think.

Hear that train coming George? Thats irrelevancy... choo choo!

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Bush Calls Obama a Nazi Appeaser

In speaking before the Knesset, the Israeli legislature, Bush was told to attack attacked Obama by describing him as a Nazi appeaser. Only Bush would have the balls to use the Israeli parliament as a political prop.

Think Progress has the video.

In his speech, Bush said, “As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: ‘Lord, if only I could have talked to Hitler, all of this might have been avoided.’ We have an obligation to call this what it is – the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.

Notice how the boy king says "an American senator"... He of course doesn't bother to mention that of course that quote is attributed to a Republican Senator, William Borah (R) from Idaho. Not that I can find a single attributable source for this quote, well... except for Glenn Beck and I am sure he isn't full of shit.

The Obama campaign was aware of the attack.

This is an unprecedented political attack on foreign soil," Obama spokesman Robert Gibbs says on CNN. "It's, quite frankly, sad and astonishing that the president of the United States would politicize the 60th anniversary of Israel with a false political attack.

For me it would be quite frankly astonishing if Bush didn't politicize the 60th anniversary of Israel. I am saddened that Israel let him.

249 days to go. Honestly, I think these next months will be some of the most dangerous under this administration as the frat boy comes to realize, more and more, that his days in the limelight are rapidly waning.

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“How is that not Deception?”

Douglas Feith on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show
Part 1 - The Daily Show - May 12


Douglas Feith on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show
Part 2 - The Daily Show - May 12

Jon Stewart interviews Douglas Feith

Feith, Former Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, was one of the principle architects of the Iraq War.

No going for the funny, Jon goes for the point: didn't Feith and the Bush administration lie to us, deceive us, intentionally sell us war, by underplaying risk?

Feith says no, that while mistakes were made, and with the benefit of hindsight they would have done things differently, the mistakes were honest mistakes.

Jon (politely) calls bullshit.

No one is fucking around.

The argument between the two is laid out cleanly and fairly. You likely will not agree with Feith, however he presents his position well.

Jon taking Feith's argument apart is a joy to behold. Highly recommended.

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Media Matters Finds Thousands of Pentagon Pundits

4,500+

Appearances/Quotations by Military Analysts Identified in New York Times Exposé on Pentagon Program... --Media Matters

A New York Times article detailed the connection between numerous media military analysts and the Pentagon and defense industries, reporting that "the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform" media military analysts "into a kind of media Trojan horse -- an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks." A Media Matters review found that since January 1, 2002, the analysts named in the Times article -- many identified as having ties to the defense industry -- collectively appeared or were quoted as experts more than 4,500 times on ABC, ABC News Now, CBS, CBS Radio Network, NBC, CNN, CNN Headline News, Fox News, MSNBC, CNBC, and NPR.

Holy F*cking Christmas... are you shitting me?

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Plantagenetry

I wasn't going to mention the festivities but this picture needed reposting, with some minor photoshoppery.

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U.S. Special Counsel Office Raided by FBI

WASHINGTON — The office of the official responsible for protecting federal workers from political interference was raided by F.B.I. agents on Tuesday as part of an investigation into whether he himself mixed politics with official business.

The raid took place at the office of Scott J. Bloch, the head of the Office of Special Counsel. Computers and documents were seized by agents trying to determine whether Mr. Bloch obstructed justice by hiring an outside company to “scrub” his computer files, The Associated Press reported. Investigators also searched Mr. Bloch’s home in suburban Virginia after obtaining a subpoena. --NYTimes.com

I really am enjoying watching the walls come crumbling down around the Bush administration. These complete incompetents that Bush hired are walking around in a minefield of stupid. These guys were Karl Rove's toadies, and Bloch himself is one of the homo-hatin' Bush partisans. Lovely people.

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82nd Airborne Barracks, Ft. Bragg

Brandon Friedman has an update on those barracks that returning vets from Afghanistan were staying in. He took part in a conference call with the DOD.

BG DENNIS ROGERS: I'll tell you right now before we even start: I assume responsibility for the shortfalls in barracks maintenance which were referenced in the video by Mr. Frawley. We let our soldiers down. And I note that a number of you are veterans, or most of you are veterans, and you served. So you know that there is no excuse for that. We let our soldiers down. --VetVoice.com

Yes, you did General. The important news here was mentioned by CSM Strickland.

The Rear Detachment was documenting what the work orders were to bring that barracks back up to standard. They didn't really, I think, turn their full attention to it until they realized they had a shortfall in time--because they had ownership for several other barracks and they were in worse condition. So they were spending a lot of their energy there.

Whenever they got 72 hours notice, trust me, they hit high speed.

Worse condition? Thats hard to imagine. Let me clue you guys in. I actually lived in those barracks. The story was that there were going to be torn down, possible remodeled and we would move to modern barracks on Smoke Bomb Hill. Of course this was in 1981. My unit was probably responsible for that paint job, 20 years ago. Republican Congressman, Republican Senator, and 3 Republican Presidents later. We see, as usual, the Republicans just want to drape themselves with the troops. They do nothing but screw them over in favor for their corporate buddies.

$800 Million

Spent on incomplete, unlivable, never going to be used in our lifetimes, embassy in Baghdad. Why don't we ship these guys to the middle east and put them up in the U.S. embassy in Baghdad?

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Afghani President Karzai Almost Assassinated, 1 Dead, 11 Wounded in Attack

President Hamid Karzai survived an assassination attempt at a military parade in central Kabul on Sunday, when suspected Taliban insurgents fired mortars and bullets at the dignitaries assembled in the spectator stand.

One person was killed and 11 injured in the incident, Gen. Zaher Azimi, a military spokesman, confirmed soon afterward. Two parliamentarians in a section of the stands not far from the president were seen falling from their chairs on television footage as gunfire rang out. NYTimes.com

Well, now that Super Dave Petraeus is in charge of Afghanistan too, maybe we can see some resources being applied to this situation. There is almost 800 KIA there, half of which were U.S. forces. This one has been ramping over the past couple of years. Because of typically incompetent handling by Bush and Cheney.

It takes some real skill to fuck up a war, two wars is unheard of. That takes real talent. One of the reasons that we can't fix either of these is that we have split our attention between the two. We are sending some of our best units to Afghanistan, 82nd Airborne, 10th Mountain Div., a lot of Special Forces, etc. People we really could use in Iraq. Now we have the Taliban staging operations in broad daylight with tons of Afghani troops around. Karzai was lucky. Sure the White House will be spinning tomorrow but this was bad, very bad. We are getting nowhere. Nowhere.

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